


Happiness Can Be Found

by TUNiU



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Cuddling, M/M, Pre-Episode: s01e03 Context Is For Kings, use of the f-word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27584687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: Paul had a bad day at work because Captain Lorca is just the worst. Hugh makes it all better.
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Happiness Can Be Found

The door to their shared quarters swished open, and Paul walked in. Hugh turned his head from his seat on the couch and watched his husband mulishly stomp his way into the room. Hugh watched as Paul unzipped his uniform jacket in one harsh downward sweep of the zipper as he made his way to the bed.

“Hi honey,” Hugh greeted, putting aside his work padd on the couch cushion.

Paul turned his head and smiled at him, so fakely his eyes squished all the way closed in sarcasm. 

“That bad?” he asked.

In answer, Paul flopped himself face down onto the middle of the bed. He stayed that way for several long seconds. Then he turned his head out of the pillows, so that he was both facing Hugh, and able to breathe.

“Fuck spores. Fuck Lorca.” Paul said. “Fuck Straal. Fuck. Everyone.”

“Fuck me?”

Paul giggled at the entendre, then frowned. “No. I’m angry right now. I want to continue being angry. Don’t soothe me with your amazing charm.”

Hugh stood up and walked in socked-feet to where Paul was. He bent down and brought up Paul’s left leg bending it up at the knee so the boot was in reach. He unclipped the chevron straps and slid the boot off Paul’s foot. The shoe was tossed by the door, next to where his own boots had been placed when he got off his shift in sickbay. Paul lowered his leg and bent up his other so that Hugh could do the same process to the right boot.

Next Hugh shimmied open Paul’s legs so that he could stand between them, bracing his knees at the edge of the mattress. He leaned over and grabbed Paul’s jacket by the collar. It required some disgruntled wriggling on Paul’s part, but they got the jacket off him while he stayed stubbornly laying on his stomach. Paul let his arms flop down at his sides. Hugh tossed the jacket onto the couch. The blue fabric fell atop the pile of his own white uniform still tossed about from when he had changed into his pajamas earlier. Paul’s eyes followed him as he got onto the bed on his side, facing Paul. Hugh’s hand went onto Paul’s back and started rubbing in soothing sweeps.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.

“Captain Lorca is…” Paul paused to find the right word, “disappointed that The Glenn is getting faster results than we are. We’re only growing and splicing brand new spore colonies faster than nature ever intended! Ass! I should leave, take you and my mushrooms with me. Lorca can captain The Glenn for all I care, use their spores. ”

Hugh nodded. Having been career Starfleet, he knew that wasn’t how the system worked. He was pretty sure Paul knew that too, though he had been conscripted in all but name, when the fleet classified his spore research. He said nothing.

“Fucking Straal gets them freeze dried out of the replicator, piggy backing on my genetic designs! Fucker.”

Hugh nodded again. He kept rubbing at Paul’s back. Paul Stamets and Justin Straal had been lab partners and best friends for over a decade. He understood that the two emotionally stunted snarky men had a way of saying I love you that involved insults. 

“Why are you even here?” Paul moaned, shoving his face into the pillow. “I’m terrible company.”

“Am I making you feel better?” Hugh asked.

Paul whipped his head up from the fabric and looked Hugh in the eyes. His angry expression opened up into an almost pleading confusion. “Always,” he said solemnly.

“Well there you go.”

Paul flipped onto his side and scooted over so his whole body was pressing against Hugh’s. His arm went around Hugh’s back and held him tightly. “You are far far too kind to cranky old me,” he said as their foreheads gently rested together. He closed his eyes. His lips were centimeters from Hugh’s own. All he had to do was purse his mouth and he could kiss him. Which he did, several times. 

They laid there--on the mattress--in peaceful quiet. Slowly their breaths evened out and they fell into a half-sleeping almost meditative state of relaxation.

Paul’s stomach growled. Hugh grinned ridiculously wide against Paul’s face. 

“NnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggOh,” Paul moaned helplessly.

“Come on,” Hugh cajoled. “Let me make you something. Bet you haven’t eaten since breakfast.” It was now nighttime. Which in space didn’t mean much outside of a solar system. But the illumination in Discovery’s corridors had dimmed automatically based on Earth’s diurnal cycle.

“Must we?” Paul pleaded. He reached out and made futile grabby hands at Hugh as he rolled out of bed and walked to the replicator.

“What do you want?” Hugh asked.

Paul grumpily sat up in bed, barely upright. His belt dug into his stomach, so he flicked the closure open and let the fabric slide looser. His legs crossed and he rested his elbow on his knee, and then placed his chin in his hand, with his fingers covering half his face. He huffed a few breaths as he thought. Then he said, “broccoli, lots and lots of broccoli.”

“Broccoli,” Hugh repeated.

“I feel the need to stab dozens of tiny trees in revenge.”

“Shouldn’t you want mushrooms then?”

Paul gave Hugh a moue of displeasure. “I can’t eat my babies,” he stated simply.

Hugh stared at Paul. 

Paul stared at Hugh. 

Eventually Hugh blinked first. “You are a ridiculous man,” he said lovingly. He turned and commanded the replicator for their food, using the touchscreen instead of voice commands. He then set the table with their plates and cups. 

Paul rolled out of bed like he was thirty-five years younger. He walked around the room’s half-partition and sat at the table. There was broccoli on his plate, but it was in a far smaller portion as compared to the other items on offer. The broccoli florets were vastly outnumbered by the rice and zucchini slices. He looked up at Hugh with a heart-breaking expression of betrayal.    
“Don’t look at me like that,” Hugh said sitting down. “I’m the one that has to sleep with your gassy butt.”

Paul’s expression only lasted a few more seconds after that, as he couldn’t keep himself from grinning at their combined ridiculousness. He gently kicked out at Hugh’s ankle. He let his socked foot rub up and tuck into Hugh’s pant leg. Hugh’s legs closed just enough so that he held Paul’s leg in place. They ate dinner grinning at each other every time their eyes met.

When they were done, Hugh got up and recycled the dishes while Paul changed out of his uniform. They met together to brush their teeth side by side. As the toothbrush swirled away in his mouth, Paul let his head rest against Hugh’s shoulder. Even the two minutes needed to brush seemed too long to wait to sleep. He made sure to keep moving the brush to get all his teeth, though it seemed to take forever. Then finally, the device timer bleeped and he could rinse and spit. The two of them shared a silly minty kiss right at the sink.

Hugh led Paul by the hand the few steps to their bed. They rolled down the covers and slid in on their own sides, but quickly met in the middle with Hugh on his back and Paul on his side holding him. Paul kissed Hugh’s scar as they both wiggled a little bit to get everything settled just right in the sheets.

“Computer,” Hugh whispered out the command, “lights off.”

The room’s lights dimmed away until the only slight illumination came from the ship’s exterior running lights sparkling through their windows.

In the quiet soft darkness, their bedtime cuddling slowly morphed into sleeping.

**Author's Note:**

> It kinda bugs me that their windows have no curtains. Of course, in deep space, starlight and/or warp lines might be faint enough to not be a bother. But someone probably wanted curtains at some time in their life aboard ship. Do they have replicator designs for like gauzy frilly curtains and blackout fabrics? Or is it just a computer command to make the window opaque. I'd love to see a crewmember with lacy curtains.


End file.
